6 ms·

Happy to answer any questions from HN folks, to the extent I can. I love this community and have been here since 2007.

by photomatt 1y ago

jalapenos 1y ago
What in your opinion is the nature of your personality?
- photomatt 1y ago
  I’d describe my personality as curious, open-minded, and calm under pressure — I like exploring ideas deeply and listening before I speak. But I do get worked up when fighting for open source principles.
  - jalapenos 1y ago
    So all positives, except one quasi negative (that's a positive). Are you familiar with what narcissism is?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
minimaxir 1y ago
Do you have a response to the top comment (among others) which assert that you are mischaracterizing the ruling? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927
- photomatt 1y ago
  My blog post is my genuine expression of happiness and joy at the ruling. The legal process is slow, and the court date is not until 2027! Reflecting on the strength of the WordPress community, we recently had a great WordCamp US in Portland a few weeks ago. The case is still happening. I attended the settlement conference, but their CEO did not. There are still many things that need to be worked out through the legal system, and that will take time, but this was a nice moment.
- rovr138 1y ago
  And wordcamp. I mean, I'm not sure on the content, but there were less people at least. > we recently had a great WordCamp US in Portland a few weeks ago. Based on https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/attendees/ https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/attendees/, https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/attendees/ https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/attendees/, and https://us.wordcamp.org/2023/attendees/ https://us.wordcamp.org/2023/attendees/ Looks like 2023 had 1,449 attendees, 2024 had 1,339, and 2025 had 884.
  - photomatt 1y ago
    This data is all transparent. I think what you're looking for is this, which shows about 1,2000 ticktets: https://central.wordcamp.org/reports/ticket-revenue-report/?report-year=2025&period=all&wordcamp-id=5651207&action=Show+results https://central.wordcamp.org/reports/ticket-revenue-report/?... You can look at reviews of the event, people had a good time. International visitors have been down due to political and immigration issues outside of our control. Being there on the ground, it did feel a little spread out, lots of pockets of people connecting, but the venue was pretty huge. We'll try to keep things tighter in Phoenix next year. The upcoming WordCamp in India looks like it will be double the size of any previous ones.
    - rovr138 1y ago
      Perfect. Tickets sold, 2025 - 1,200 - down 38% 2024 - 1,928 - down 10.5% 2023 - 2,149
      - photomatt 1y ago
        Some people choose to attend other camps because they are concerned about the US border issues. If you zoom out, we're also trying to spend time on various events, such as Campus Connect, which don't show up in those numbers. However, indeed, we haven't yet reached our pre-COVID in-person attendance levels, which peaked around 40k/yr across all camps, and we're now around half that. COVID hit us pretty hard, and we haven't yet figured out the right formula for everything, but it's showing positive momentum in meetups, camps, and the new educational events. One challenging thing about WordCamps is you get people coming who are completely non-technical and just want to blog, all the way to hardcore devs who want interesting technical content. There were some great talks at WordCamp US, if you check it out you'll see how we tried to balance that.
bravetraveler 1y ago
> to the extent I can Taking legal advice now? Rhetorical question, more a statement: last time you were here, you didn't. edit: For the uninitiated, page 24 is neat. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.437474/gov.uscourts.cand.437474.64.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.43...
- flaminHotSpeedo 1y ago
  It's interesting to me that all the screenshots besides the HN one appear to be from mobile devices?
- ahmedfromtunis 1y ago
  By the way, you can append `#page=xx` to link to a specific page in a PDF file.
  - bravetraveler 1y ago
    Thank you, would be surprised how rarely I use this filetype
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
gpm 1y ago
It's been almost a year, I'm curious if there's been any serious discussions about settling this case (e.g. a proposal both sides were actually actively considering/negotiating)?
- photomatt 1y ago
  There was an excellent magistrate judge and a settlement proceeding, which I showed up to in good faith, but the other CEO did not.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - hananova 1y ago
    With how you acted, I'm not surprised that they have zero interest in settling and want to have the law decide.
Johnny2727 1y ago
Hi, Matt. Why, in late 2025, should I opt to use PHP and WP for a blog or a web site instead of just using Rust and Tokio? If I use Rust, my web site will be blazingly fast and memory-efficient, with no runtime or garbage collector, and it can power performance-critical services that run on embedded devices and easily integrate with other languages. Rust's rich type system and ownership model will guarantee me memory-safety and thread-safety, which eliminate many classes of bugs at compile-time. And that's on top of how Rust has great documentation, a friendly compiler with useful error messages, and top-notch tooling. I can even use Rust to supercharge my JavaScript, one module at a time.
- jalapenos 1y ago
  Computer nerds should probably use Rust and Tokio. Then they can spend hundreds of evenings tinkering with their oh-so-superior contraption of a website, muttering how silly everyone else's websites are. But everyone else who just want to put their small business website up that their marketing assistant can easily edit, will just pay someone on Upwork to pop up a WordPress site for them in a day or so, with everything they need included, so they can spend their time on value-added activities.
- pjaoko 1y ago
  > Rust's rich type system and ownership model will guarantee me memory-safety and thread-safety, which eliminate many classes of bugs at compile-time. With PHP, you don't have to worry about compile-time bugs, because there is no compile time.
  - josh-sematic 1y ago
    …and instead you get runtime bugs which is somehow better?
    - decimalenough 1y ago
      [dead]
    - pjaoko 1y ago
reconnecting 1y ago
If you could hypothetically turn back time to prior to what is now called the 'WordPress drama', would you personally choose this same path again, or would you do things differently?
- photomatt 1y ago
  Differently.
  - nchmy 1y ago
    How so?
    - righthand 1y ago
      Not OP but, IMO one can only speculate. The answer you will most likely get would be that one will have chosen to execute these moves before WPEngine existed turning back time much earlier than the actual start of the drama/legal battles itself.
navigate8310 1y ago
If I may ask, what's your take on SSGs?
- photomatt 1y ago
  Static site generators? Not sure what you mean. A static site is appropriate in some situations. I love sites that are alive, dynamic, reactive.
  - hiccuphippo 1y ago
    Static sites are pretty much alive and dynamic, but that dynamism happens at a different layer of the stack.
rustc 1y ago
Have you thought about licensing future additions to WordPress under AGPL? I believe it can be done [1]. This will disallow private forks and require companies to publish any changes they make. [1]: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/12276/how-to-change-the-license-of-a-project-from-gpl-to-agpl https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/12276/how-to-...
- misnome 1y ago
  How would this help? This isn’t at issue.
  - rustc 1y ago
    It would disallow private forks of WordPress (require them to share the modifications) but I don't know whether WPEngine and other hosts have any private modifications or they all use stock WordPress.
    - photomatt 1y ago
      The problem we have isn't that they have some amazing code they aren't sharing with the rest of the world.
- photomatt 1y ago
  I suspect WordPress will be GPL forever; it's a lovely license, and I enjoy publishing work under it.
Tenemo 1y ago
Are you considering or have you ever considered moving to or developing some other CMS?
- photomatt 1y ago
  I'm maintaining and developing two other CMS systems, in Tumblr and Day One, and I hope one day there can just be one.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
    > “There can only be one.” —Connor MacLeod I’ll just show myself out…
akanet 1y ago
Matt do you guys still use the office in the US Bank Building in the mission?
- photomatt 1y ago
  We do! Would like to activate it more.

Happy to answer any questions from HN folks, to the extent I can. I love this community and have been here since 2007.

jalapenos 1y ago

What in your opinion is the nature of your personality?

photomatt 1y ago
I’d describe my personality as curious, open-minded, and calm under pressure — I like exploring ideas deeply and listening before I speak. But I do get worked up when fighting for open source principles.
- jalapenos 1y ago
  So all positives, except one quasi negative (that's a positive). Are you familiar with what narcissism is?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

minimaxir 1y ago

Do you have a response to the top comment (among others) which assert that you are mischaracterizing the ruling? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927

photomatt 1y ago
My blog post is my genuine expression of happiness and joy at the ruling. The legal process is slow, and the court date is not until 2027! Reflecting on the strength of the WordPress community, we recently had a great WordCamp US in Portland a few weeks ago. The case is still happening. I attended the settlement conference, but their CEO did not. There are still many things that need to be worked out through the legal system, and that will take time, but this was a nice moment.
rovr138 1y ago
And wordcamp. I mean, I'm not sure on the content, but there were less people at least. > we recently had a great WordCamp US in Portland a few weeks ago. Based on https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/attendees/ https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/attendees/, https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/attendees/ https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/attendees/, and https://us.wordcamp.org/2023/attendees/ https://us.wordcamp.org/2023/attendees/ Looks like 2023 had 1,449 attendees, 2024 had 1,339, and 2025 had 884.
- photomatt 1y ago
  This data is all transparent. I think what you're looking for is this, which shows about 1,2000 ticktets: https://central.wordcamp.org/reports/ticket-revenue-report/?report-year=2025&period=all&wordcamp-id=5651207&action=Show+results https://central.wordcamp.org/reports/ticket-revenue-report/?... You can look at reviews of the event, people had a good time. International visitors have been down due to political and immigration issues outside of our control. Being there on the ground, it did feel a little spread out, lots of pockets of people connecting, but the venue was pretty huge. We'll try to keep things tighter in Phoenix next year. The upcoming WordCamp in India looks like it will be double the size of any previous ones.
  - rovr138 1y ago
    Perfect. Tickets sold, 2025 - 1,200 - down 38% 2024 - 1,928 - down 10.5% 2023 - 2,149
    - photomatt 1y ago
      Some people choose to attend other camps because they are concerned about the US border issues. If you zoom out, we're also trying to spend time on various events, such as Campus Connect, which don't show up in those numbers. However, indeed, we haven't yet reached our pre-COVID in-person attendance levels, which peaked around 40k/yr across all camps, and we're now around half that. COVID hit us pretty hard, and we haven't yet figured out the right formula for everything, but it's showing positive momentum in meetups, camps, and the new educational events. One challenging thing about WordCamps is you get people coming who are completely non-technical and just want to blog, all the way to hardcore devs who want interesting technical content. There were some great talks at WordCamp US, if you check it out you'll see how we tried to balance that.

bravetraveler 1y ago

> to the extent I can Taking legal advice now? Rhetorical question, more a statement: last time you were here, you didn't. edit: For the uninitiated, page 24 is neat. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.437474/gov.uscourts.cand.437474.64.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.43...

flaminHotSpeedo 1y ago
It's interesting to me that all the screenshots besides the HN one appear to be from mobile devices?
ahmedfromtunis 1y ago
By the way, you can append `#page=xx` to link to a specific page in a PDF file.
- bravetraveler 1y ago
  Thank you, would be surprised how rarely I use this filetype
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

gpm 1y ago

It's been almost a year, I'm curious if there's been any serious discussions about settling this case (e.g. a proposal both sides were actually actively considering/negotiating)?

photomatt 1y ago
There was an excellent magistrate judge and a settlement proceeding, which I showed up to in good faith, but the other CEO did not.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- hananova 1y ago
  With how you acted, I'm not surprised that they have zero interest in settling and want to have the law decide.

Johnny2727 1y ago

Hi, Matt. Why, in late 2025, should I opt to use PHP and WP for a blog or a web site instead of just using Rust and Tokio? If I use Rust, my web site will be blazingly fast and memory-efficient, with no runtime or garbage collector, and it can power performance-critical services that run on embedded devices and easily integrate with other languages. Rust's rich type system and ownership model will guarantee me memory-safety and thread-safety, which eliminate many classes of bugs at compile-time. And that's on top of how Rust has great documentation, a friendly compiler with useful error messages, and top-notch tooling. I can even use Rust to supercharge my JavaScript, one module at a time.

jalapenos 1y ago
Computer nerds should probably use Rust and Tokio. Then they can spend hundreds of evenings tinkering with their oh-so-superior contraption of a website, muttering how silly everyone else's websites are. But everyone else who just want to put their small business website up that their marketing assistant can easily edit, will just pay someone on Upwork to pop up a WordPress site for them in a day or so, with everything they need included, so they can spend their time on value-added activities.
pjaoko 1y ago
> Rust's rich type system and ownership model will guarantee me memory-safety and thread-safety, which eliminate many classes of bugs at compile-time. With PHP, you don't have to worry about compile-time bugs, because there is no compile time.
- josh-sematic 1y ago
  …and instead you get runtime bugs which is somehow better?
  - decimalenough 1y ago
    [dead]
  - pjaoko 1y ago

reconnecting 1y ago

If you could hypothetically turn back time to prior to what is now called the 'WordPress drama', would you personally choose this same path again, or would you do things differently?

photomatt 1y ago
Differently.
- nchmy 1y ago
  How so?
  - righthand 1y ago
    Not OP but, IMO one can only speculate. The answer you will most likely get would be that one will have chosen to execute these moves before WPEngine existed turning back time much earlier than the actual start of the drama/legal battles itself.

navigate8310 1y ago

If I may ask, what's your take on SSGs?

photomatt 1y ago
Static site generators? Not sure what you mean. A static site is appropriate in some situations. I love sites that are alive, dynamic, reactive.
- hiccuphippo 1y ago
  Static sites are pretty much alive and dynamic, but that dynamism happens at a different layer of the stack.

rustc 1y ago

Have you thought about licensing future additions to WordPress under AGPL? I believe it can be done [1]. This will disallow private forks and require companies to publish any changes they make. [1]: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/12276/how-to-change-the-license-of-a-project-from-gpl-to-agpl https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/12276/how-to-...

misnome 1y ago
How would this help? This isn’t at issue.
- rustc 1y ago
  It would disallow private forks of WordPress (require them to share the modifications) but I don't know whether WPEngine and other hosts have any private modifications or they all use stock WordPress.
  - photomatt 1y ago
    The problem we have isn't that they have some amazing code they aren't sharing with the rest of the world.
photomatt 1y ago
I suspect WordPress will be GPL forever; it's a lovely license, and I enjoy publishing work under it.

Tenemo 1y ago

Are you considering or have you ever considered moving to or developing some other CMS?

photomatt 1y ago
I'm maintaining and developing two other CMS systems, in Tumblr and Day One, and I hope one day there can just be one.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  > “There can only be one.” —Connor MacLeod I’ll just show myself out…

akanet 1y ago

Matt do you guys still use the office in the US Bank Building in the mission?

photomatt 1y ago
We do! Would like to activate it more.